Locating and displaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screen

ABSTRACT

A locating and displaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screen comprises the steps of: capturing a plurality of computer screens during a predetermined time period; comparing one computer screen with the following computer screen to locate a plurality of screen differences, in which every single screen difference includes at least one different region; judging a respective position of every individual different region of each screen difference so as to locate an object window containing the different region; determine one object window as a video region by comparing a size or an appearance time of the object window; capturing a film of the video region; forwarding the film to a distant displayer; and then the displayer broadcasting the film on a display.

This application claims the benefit of Taiwan Patent Application SerialNo. 096135034, filed Sep. 20, 2007, the subject matter of which isincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(1) Field of the Invention

The invention relates to a method for displaying a computer video onanother display screen, and more particularly to a display method thatcan locate a specific video region of a computer screen, forward thesame and display the same on another screen.

(2) Description of the Prior Art

Nowadays, network sources have become one of major providers ofknowledge and entertainment. Tremendous amount of image data can beimmediately available through network download. Further, shareinformation can be also quickly posted to a website through thenetworking.

For most of applications in multimedia display over the network, thecomputer is the inevitable tool to share the network information. Tothose unfamiliar with the computer operation or to those uncomfortableto entertain the network video files through a computer screen (ormonitor), the network resources would be much attractive if the networkmedia can be directly displayed on another screen, other than the tinycomputer screen, such as a TV screen in the living room.

Please refer to FIG. 1, a typical framework is shown to demonstrate howa computer video can be displayed in another screen. The frameworkincludes a computer 10, a displayer 12 and a display (or screen) 14.

The computer 10 capable of networking and multimedia playing can displaystreaming media through some video-sharing websites such as YouTube, orcan display video files pre-stored in a hard disk or a disc player ofthe computer 10. No matter what kind of aforesaid displaying isperformed, the computer 10 need to install a specific display program.In particular, some formats of video files can only be played throughspecific display programs. Hence, to have the computer 10 able todisplay versatile multimedia files, various display programs need to beinstalled inside the computer 10.

The displayer 12 can be cabled or connected wirelessly to the computer10 so as to establish a local internet 16. Through the internet 16, thedisplayer 12 can receive multimedia streams from the computer 10, andfurther forward the received multimedia streams to the display 14 (anLCD TV for example) for broadcasting. In the case that the computer 10can compress and encode the streams, then the displayer 12 should haverespective functions in uncompressing and decoding so that themultimedia streams received from the computer 10 can be displayed in thedisplay 14. Further, the displayer 12 can include a remote control 121and an accompanying wireless receiver 122. The wireless receiver 122built in the displayer 12 is used to receive commands from the remotecontrol 121. These commands include that to have the displayer 12 tocapture specific multimedia streams in the computer 10, that to outputthe multimedia streams to the display 14 for broadcasting, and so on.

Generally, a video-sharing website uses to provide a tiny video region102 to occupy portion of the computer screen 101, and leaves the rest104 of the computer screen 101 for commercial purposes. Yet, to theuser, it is favorite to have the video region 102 to be enlarged tooccupy the whole area of the computer screen 101 and to have thecommercial area 104 to be zoomed as small as possible. In particular, itis hoped that the display 14 can only show the enlarged video from thevideo region 102, and expel all the commercial materials in thecommercial area 104. However, by the current application, such a wish isalmost infeasible and thus the introducing of the internet 16 and thecomputer 10 to the living room is less popular.

Also, in the art, for a remote control 121 able to control a distantcomputer 10, it should be equipped with sufficient hardware and softwareto achieve functions in replacing the keyboard and the mouse. Thus, thedesign in such a remote control 121 would be inevitably complicated.Furthermore, in the case that the computer screen 101 and the videoregion 102 present different features in controls, the operation of theremote control 121 would become ragged, especially when it is operatedfar away from the computer 10. It is clear that the conventional remotecontrol 121 is less suitable for a user who is close to the display 14but away from the computer 10.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide alocating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen, by which a tiny video region on the computer screen canbe forwarded and enlarged to a distant display for broadcasting.

In a first embodiment of the present invention, the locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screencomprises the steps of: capturing a plurality of computer screens (Si,where i is an integral ) in a time sequence during a predetermined timeperiod (T); comparing the computer screen Si and the following computerscreen Si+1 so as to locate a plurality of screen differences (Di) inbetween, in which every single screen difference Di includes at least adifferent region Ri; locating a target screen difference Dm from thegroup of Di's, in which the different region Ri of Dm covers eachrespective Ri of each Di; locating a largest (in area) different regionRv among plural Ri's of the Dm and defining the Rv as a video region;capturing a film of the video region; forwarding the film to a distantdisplayer; and the displayer broadcasting the film on the display.

In a second embodiment of the present invention, the locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screencomprises the steps of: capturing a plurality of computer screens (Si,where i is an integral ) in a time sequence during a predetermined timeperiod (T); comparing the computer screen Si and the following computerscreen Si+l so as to locate a plurality of screen differences (Di) inbetween, in which every single screen difference Di includes at least adifferent region Ri; judging a position of every different region Ri ofeach screen difference Di so as to locate an object window Wi withrespect to each single Ri; determining one of the Wi's as a video regionRv by comparing sizes and appearance times of the Wi's; capturing a filmof the video region; forwarding the film to a distant displayer; and thedisplayer broadcasting the film on the display.

In the present invention, for the locating and displaying method doesonly capture the video region of the computer screen and display thevideo streams of the video region on a distant display through thedisplayer, only the video streams of the video region can be shown onthe distant display, and all other images on the computer screen otherthan the target video region (such as the commercial materials) wouldn'tbe shown on the display, such that the interested video streams can bepresent on the display by a full-screen scale.

All these objects are achieved by the locating and displaying methodupon a specific video region of a computer screen described below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will now be specified with reference to itspreferred embodiment illustrated in the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a typical framework shown to demonstratehow a computer image can be displayed in another screen;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a framework that performs a locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screen inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a first embodiment of the locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screen inaccordance with the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic view to demonstrate how the Step 2 of FIG. 3 canbe performed;

FIG. 5 is a schematic view to demonstrate how the Step 3 of FIG. 3 canbe performed;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a second embodiment of the locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screen inaccordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 7 is a schematic view to demonstrate how the different regions Ri'sof plural screen differences Di's can be computed orderly by applying anapplication programming interface (API) provided by the operation system(OS) so as to locate an object window Wi.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The invention disclosed herein is directed to a locating and displayingmethod upon a specific video region of a computer screen. In thefollowing description, numerous details are set forth in order toprovide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will beappreciated by one skilled in the art that variations of these specificdetails are possible while still achieving the results of the presentinvention. In other instance, well-known components are not described indetail in order not to unnecessarily obscure the present invention.

Referring now to FIG. 2, a schematic view of a framework that performs alocating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen in accordance with the present invention is shown. Oneof major features of the present invention is that a video regiondetection module 20 is built inside the computer 10. The video regiondetection module 20 can tell the video region 102 from the commercialarea 104 in the computer screen 101, can capture video streams of thevideo region 102, can performing encoding and compressing upon the videostreams, and can forward the video streams to the distant displayer 12for further playing the video streams on the display 14 (for example, aTV set in the living room). In the display of the display 14, only thevideo streams in the video region 102 of the computer screen 101 can beshown.

In the present invention, the connection between the displayer 12 andthe computer 10 can be a cable form or a wireless form through aninternet 16. The video region detection module 20 can be stored insidethe displayer in advance, and can be uploaded to the computer 10 as soonas the connection between the displayer 20 and the computer 10 isestablished. In general, the displayer 12 located usually adjacent tothe display 14 can further include a remote control 121 and a wirelessreceiver 122. The remote control 121 is to issue commands to thewireless receiver 122. The displayer 12 can activate the video regiondetection module 20 inside the computer 10 to perform necessarydetecting and broadcasting jobs.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a flowchart of a first embodiment of thelocating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen in accordance with the present invention is shown. Thelocating and displaying method of the present invention comprises thefollowing steps.

Step 1. Capture (or sample) a plurality of computer screens (Si, where iis an integral ) in a time sequence during a predetermined time period(T). For example, sample 10 (i.e., i=1˜10) computer screens in a second.

Step 2. Compare the current computer screen Si and the followingcomputer screen Si+1 so as to locate a plurality of screen differences(Di) in between. Referring to FIG. 4, each of the screen differencesDi's includes at least a different region Ri. That is to say, to thepreceding example, a total number of 9 screen differences Di's (i=1˜9)can be generated. In the present invention, the different region isdefined to be the smallest square area on each difference district ofthe respective screen difference. Therefore, the number of the screendifferences may be zero (namely, no difference between two computerscreens) or more than one (namely, plural difference in between).

Step 3. Locate a target screen difference Dm from the group of Di's(say, from D1˜D9), in which the different region Ri of Dm covers eachrespective Ri of each Di. Referring to FIG. 5, the purpose of thiscurrent step is to locate the screen difference (i.e., the target screendifference Dm) that can cover all the different regions Ri's.

Step 4. Define the largest (in area) different region among the pluralRi's of the Dm as the video region Rv. Generally, in a computer screen,for the area for the video region is larger than that for the commercialarea, it can be taken for granted that the largest different regionamong all Ri's is the video region Rv. In FIG. 5, the contents in thevideo region Rv present the video streams the user want to see.

Step 5. Capture video streams (or say, a film) of the video region, forexample, upon a section of films. In capturing the streams, a pluralityof screens in the video region can be captured during a predeterminedtime period. For example, a rate of 24 captures per second can beadopted in capturing the video streams. Those captured video streams canbe encoded and further compressed into streams with a specific format.For example, the mp4 format can be one of the acceptable formats.

Step 6. Form a streaming server inside the computer to broadcast abroadcasting message to the displayer, in which the broadcasting messageincludes the URL of the computer.

Step 7. Establish a connection between the displayer and the streamingserver of the computer according to the URL of the broadcasting message.

Step 8. The streaming server forwards the compressed streams to thedisplayer, and then the displayer decodes and uncompresses thecompressed streams into the respective uncompressed video streams.

Step 9. Forward the uncompressed video streams to a distant display forfurther playing.

Referring now to FIG. 6, a flowchart of a second embodiment of thelocating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen in accordance with the present invention is shown. Thelocating and displaying method of the present invention comprises thefollowing steps.

Step 1. Capture (or sample) a plurality of computer screens (Si, where iis an integral ) in a time sequence during a predetermined time period(T). For example, sample 10 (i.e., i=1˜10) computer screens in a second.

Step 2. Compare the current computer screen Si and the followingcomputer screen Si+1 so as to locate a plurality of screen differences(Di) in between. Referring to FIG. 4, each of the screen differencesDi's includes at least a different region Ri. That is to say, to thepreceding example, a total number of 9 screen differences Di's (i=1˜9)can be generated. In the present invention, the different region isdefined to be the smallest square area on each difference district ofthe respective screen difference. Therefore, the number of the screendifferences may be zero (namely, no difference between two computerscreens) or more than one (namely, plural difference in between).

Step 3. Judge a respective position of every different region Ri of eachthe screen difference Di so as to locate an object window Wi withrespect to each single Ri. In positioning the Wi, referring to FIG.7,the center point Pi of the respective Ri is firstly computed, then anappropriate API (for example, the WindowFromPoint( )) provided by the OS(for example, the MS Windows® system) of the computer is used to obtainan object window handle including the Pi, and finally another API (forexample, the GetWindowRect( )) of the computer is used to locate the Wiincluding the Pi.

Step 4. Determine one of the Wi's as a video region Rv by comparingsizes or appearance times of the individual Wi's. For each of the Wi'scan be the video region Rv or a non-video region (for example, acommercial area or the like), and for the video region usually has abroader area and a larger number in the appearance time of the differentregion, so it is practical to determine the video region Rv by judgingthe size and the appearance time of each of the object windows Wi's. Inthe present invention, a specific object window Wi is determined to bethe video region Rv by having the largest number in the result of thearea timing the appearance time.

Step 5. Capture video streams (or say, a film) of the video region, forexample, upon a section of films. In capturing the streams, a pluralityof screens in the video region can be captured during a predeterminedtime period. For example, a rate of 24 captures per second can beadopted in capturing the video streams. Those captured video streams canbe encoded and further compressed into streams with a specific format.For example, the mp4 format can be one of the acceptable formats.

Step 6. Form a streaming server inside the computer to broadcast abroadcasting message to the displayer, in which the broadcasting messageincludes the URL of the computer.

Step 7. Establish a connection between the displayer and the streamingserver of the computer according to the URL of the broadcasting message.

Step 8. The streaming server forwards the compressed streams to thedisplayer, and then the displayer decodes and uncompresses thecompressed streams into the respective uncompressed video streams.

Step 9. Forward the uncompressed video streams to a distant display forfurther playing.

From the aforesaid description, the present invention is superior to therelevant prior art for the following reasons.

a. The present invention can directly locate the video region of thecomputer screen, capture the video region, and encode the video streamsof the video region by a relevant format. Namely, no matter what theformat of the video streams or the application program to play thesevideo streams in the video region is, the present invention can stillperform the aforesaid locating, capturing, editing and replaying thevideo streams in the video region.

b. By providing the present invention, any processing level of the CPUof the computer can still appropriately encode a predetermined length ofthe film in the video region of the computer screen, and thus no screenflickering or stalling can happen any more.

c. For only the video region of the computer screen can be shown in thedisplay by providing the present invention, the video region can bereplayed in the display in any acceptable zoom, such that a preferredscreen size to amuse the video streams of the video region can beobtained.

d. In the present invention, the remote control can control thedisplayer in a more direct and simple way, just like a normal TV remote,to duplicate the playing of the video streams in the video region to thedisplay.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and describedwith reference to a preferred embodiment, it will be understood by thoseskilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may bewithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

1. A locating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen, comprising the steps of: a. capturing a plurality ofcomputer screens Si's during a predetermined time period (T); b.comparing one of said computer screens Si and a following one of saidcomputer screens Si+1 so as to locate a plurality of screen differencesDi's, in which every single one of said screen differences Di's includesat least one different region Ri; c. locating a target screen differenceDm from the Di's, in which said at least one different region Ri of theDm covers each of said at least one Ri of each said Di; d. locating thelargest (in area) different region Rv among said at least one differentregion Ri of the Dm and defining the Rv as a video region; e. capturinga film of said video region; f. forwarding the film to a distantdisplayer; and g. the displayer broadcasting the film on a display. 2.The locating and displaying method upon a specific video region of acomputer screen according to claim 1, wherein said step e is performedby firstly capturing a plurality of screens in said video region andthen compressing the screens into said film.
 3. The locating anddisplaying method upon a specific video region of a computer screenaccording to claim 1, wherein said step f is to form a streaming serverinside said computer to broadcast a broadcasting message to saiddisplayer, in which the broadcasting message is used to initiate aconnection between said displayer and the streaming server for furtherforwarding said film to said displayer.
 4. The locating and displayingmethod upon a specific video region of a computer screen according toclaim 2, wherein said step g is performed by firstly said displayerdecoding said film and then forwarding said film to a display forfurther playing.